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August 11, 2018

Nicki Minaj’s Album Premiere Was a Weird, Wild Ride

Nicki Minajdebuted her new album Queen on Friday in an impressively unpredictable broadcast on Apple’s Beats 1 radio show. Though scheduled to begin an hour before Queen hit streaming services, the rapper started the program 23 minutes late, “exhausted and delusional” due to lack of sleep. Over the next two hours, she was baffling one moment and uproarious the next, simultaneously “so emotional” about her album release and fiercely dismissive of her detractors — as far as album rollouts go, it was a fitting end to Minaj’s, which featured a series of singles that didn’t make the final tracklist, a series of delayed release dates and a Twitter poll to ask when the album should come out. In between playing the new songs, Minaj dispensed relationship advice and sex tips, promoted her upcoming tour with Future and her clout on social media. She also took the time to correct her fans’ spelling (accept vs. except) and pay homage to some rappers, especially older MCs who prioritize lyricism, while harshly (and hilariously) dissing others. Here are the five best takeaways from the broadcast:

Minaj needs to swear.“We’re part of history,” Minaj assured her listeners during the pre-Queen portion of her Beats 1 broadcast. “This is the first show that Apple has let someone come up here and curse on because I told them my anxiety would skyrocket too much if I couldn’t fucking curse!”

Minaj excels at improvising.Minaj was just two songs into her already-late album debut when, for unknown reasons, she was told she had to stop playing new songs on the air. “They’re asking me to stall, so I gotta stall,” she told her listeners, beginning a goofy freestyle. “If I got a ball, let’s fuck ’em all, I stand tall. I gotta stall, fuck ’em all.”

Then she started offering whispered previews of lines from Queen‘s third track: “I tried to fuck 50 for a powerful hour, but all that nigga want to do is talk Power for hours;” “I had to cancel DJ Khaled, nigga, we ain’t speaking/ Ain’t no fat nigga telling me what he ain’t eating.” Without the context of “Barbie Dreams,” these seemed were head-turning non sequiturs. Moments later, the album hit streaming services and she was cleared to play “Barbie Dreams,” which is filled with similar takedowns.